Mojang Reps Saying Modders Can't Have Terms on Their Mods

[Shadowclaimer]

Curse does not have the legal right to stick up for anyone in this case. This is a matter between Mojang and the modders.

As it stands, the only person whom the mod authors cannot reserve distribution rights against is Mojang itself. Mojang may, if it so chooses, share that right with others, but only if it so chooses. Until the company chooses to do so in an official capacity (i.e. something more like a Corporate Action than a random tweet from an employee), a mod author's rights are still explicitly reserved and acknowledged by the EULA and TOS.

Read Marc's quote in the thread on Minecraft Forums.

He basically confirmed Curse can police their forums how they see fit and the moderation teams have said they'll be keeping the same rules. So they will be shutting down mods that contain "stolen" content, regardless of EULA. As a private website they aren't bound by it and can completely choose to drop mods off the site for any reason they see fit.

 

[WTFFFS]

The really interesting one would be if someone used this as justification for releasing their own version of Forge based entirely on the current Forge's code now wouldn't that be a nice thorny knot?
Forge is a mod for Minecraft and is under the definition of this isn't it?

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Read Marc's quote in the thread on Minecraft Forums.

He basically confirmed Curse can police their forums how they see fit and the moderation teams have said they'll be keeping the same rules. So they will be shutting down mods that contain "stolen" content, regardless of EULA. As a private website they aren't bound by it and can completely choose to drop mods off the site for any reason they see fit.

I fail to see how that is 'sticking up for' anyone. Curse is, as you just said, a single private website. It's about like trying to plug Hoover Dam with your finger.

 

[Shadowclaimer]

I fail to see how that is 'sticking up for' anyone. Curse is, as you just said, a single private website. It's about like trying to plug Hoover Dam with your finger.

Its the largest modding site there is at the moment for Minecraft mods and by far the most popular forum outlet. I think its safe to say they have a fair bit of control over the situation.

 

[KirinDave]

I could see this being used as justification of "Redpower 2 the reincarnation" quite easily and I suspect that some good (as in active, able coders not ethical) devs would pick that up, which would be "stealing" a mod and sure ethical pack makers would not include said mod but the endusers? yeah they would howl for it. (yes I do have a low opinion of people why do you ask?)

I'd have to examine the situation specifically rather than imagine a mutable hypothetical.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Its the largest modding site there is at the moment for Minecraft mods and by far the most popular forum outlet. I think its safe to say they have a fair bit of control over the situation.

Ummm... the minecraft forums seem to be far more popular, considering that's where all of the posts for mods that don't have their own website can be found for the mod packs I am involved in. Curse is only just now getting popular because FTB is asking mod authors to switch over.

So no, not really a whole lot of control.

 

[Shadowclaimer]

Ummm... the minecraft forums seem to be far more popular, considering that's where all of the posts for mods that don't have their own website can be found for the mod packs I am involved in. Curse is only just now getting popular because FTB is asking mod authors to switch over.

So no, not really a whole lot of control.

Curse IS the Minecraft Forums..

 

[Eyamaz]

Ummm... the minecraft forums seem to be far more popular, considering that's where all of the posts for mods that don't have their own website can be found for the mod packs I am involved in. Curse is only just now getting popular because FTB is asking mod authors to switch over.

So no, not really a whole lot of control.

you do realize curse and MCF are the same right?

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Curse IS the Minecraft Forums..

Yea, but they aren't utilizing the curse modder functions like mods such as Buildcraft are currently utilizing. In other words, all the code itself is not hosted on Curse, thus the mod itself can be distributed practically anywhere.[DOUBLEPOST=1390631306][/DOUBLEPOST]

you do realize curse and MCF are the same right?

MCF can't really do anything without violating its own open source license agreements.

 

[Necr0maNceR]

It's an interesting situation for me. I am now on even footing in terms of mod archiving as FTB now. I do not have to ask for permission to archive mods anymore. Which has been a massive portion of my time on the RR project.

At the same time, you're likely to make a number of enemies AND not necessarily get help from the mod authors for inter-mod bug fixing if you don't ask.

That's a dangerous game.

Good modpacks do a profound service to modders; we offer support forums, field and reproduce bugs, and help keep the modders focused on real bugs and not managing a flood of chatter to their servers. This is something I take pretty seriously with RR, and we've spent real money (RR has cost me well over $2000 at this point over the life of the project, and that's considering my time as worthless) to try and make that possible. We field a lot of bugs, run an IRC support channel, and carefully reproduce bugs and offer them to modders on a silver platter (there are more modders than staff in our admin channel right now!) And of course, I shudder to think what ATlauncher is costing its maintainer and author, Ryan.

So the idea that modpacks don't provide value to the modder and that they can simply anger us lightly? I find it a bit offensive, myself. For mods we choose to rehost, we offer that value when we can.

Uhh, dude? I was commenting on the fact you said you wouldn't need to ask for permissions anymore, and I was saying why that would be a bad idea and you shouldn't do that. Then you go acting like the service of rooting out bugs for modders supersedes the need to act for permission to use their mods in a pack. I can assure you, it does not. You're going to need to keep asking for permission so long as mod authors request it, or you're going to burn a lot of bridges.

 

[numbertheo]

Community support is going to be the only real protection that modders get. How many mod developers are going to summon the lawyers when someone violates their license?

Fortunately, it seems that mod developers are getting decent support in this area. As a community, we should respect the developers and their work.

On a more practical note, I doubt that it will be easy to put together a mod pack of any significant size if the mod developers aren't willing to help.

 

[WTFFFS]

I'd have to examine the situation specifically rather than imagine a mutable hypothetical.

Mutable Hypothetical? true
but possible? also true
likely? that one is more of a maybe but considering that someone did (specifically with RP2) when it was considered to be far more of a legal issue I would mark it as likely.

Community support is going to be the only real protection that modders get. How many mod developers are going to summon the lawyers when someone violates their license?

Fortunately, it seems that mod developers are getting decent support in this area. As a community, we should respect the developers and their work.

On a more practical note, I doubt that it will be easy to put together a mod pack of any significant size if the mod developers aren't willing to help.

It depends of your definition of a "modpack of significant size" I could distribute my personal packs both of which run 120-180 mods with no issues (both tested by me playing them and I tend toward "power gamer") with a few hours of setup (also it may cost money but that is not insurmountable). Advertising the fact would be a little more problematical but I can see a few avenues to do so.

Would I however? not a fucking chance, since I also tend toward ethical behaviour and I respect the hours of effort the mod devs put in to enhance my enjoyment of this game (I don't sadly have the financial situation to be able to support them materially but the thought is there, I do deliberately download all mods and update my packs regularly via the ad.fly links though)

 

[immibis]

The really interesting one would be if someone used this as justification for releasing their own version of Forge based entirely on the current Forge's code now wouldn't that be a nice thorny knot?

You can already do that.

Modpack permissions didn't matter before, except for politeness, and to make modders not want to add disruptive code to their mods (which they can still do).

 

[Hambeau]

I could see this being used as justification of "Redpower 2 the reincarnation" quite easily and I suspect that some good (as in active, able coders not ethical) devs would pick that up, which would be "stealing" a mod and sure ethical pack makers would not include said mod but the endusers? yeah they would howl for it. (yes I do have a low opinion of people why do you ask?)

You're not the only one with a low opinion of, let's call them end-users.

In my 10 years as a Lan/Network Engineer for a major long distance telecommunications company I've seen the gamut, from managers that only bought 2 copies of software because there were 2 of us to install it on all 350+ workstations (during the 90's, when they were holding Lan Administrators criminally accountable for such occurrences, no less) to later, management-decreed sweeps of user accounts on our servers and e-mail looking for illegally downloaded music/video to be discussed at performance reviews and/or disciplinary action, to one "porn" aficionado's dismay. Boy, did WE become popular...

To Joe user, they play music on the radio so it's free, right? If videos weren't free they'd do more to keep them off-line, right?

The public, as a whole, has no respect for Intellectual Property, probably because, as a whole, "Intellectual" doesn't apply to a mob.

 

[un worry]

How many mod developers are going to summon the lawyers when someone violates their license?

I saw this copyright infringement/takedown notice posted on the reddit thread. So would this no longer be an option for mod devs under the proposed EULA?

 

[Bagman817]

I could see this being used as justification of "Redpower 2 the reincarnation" quite easily

Project Red didn't feel the need for a justification. Original code or no, it's a straight rip off of RP2. Which pretty much points out that this is pretty much a non-issue. Mod licences may or may not be legal, but they are pretty much un-enforceable. By the same token, as it stands, Mojang would have a difficult time preventing mods from existing, and as long as there's no revenue generation, it would not be in their best interest to try.
Nothing has really changed. I believe as a decent human being, you should respect content creators via permissions. That said, there will always be people that don't, and there always will be.

 

[Grydian2]

Marc has tried his best to make this clear. First off mod authors would be unable to prove in court that they "lost" anything from a mod being used against their will since the EULA specifically says you cannot make money off of mods. Second owning minecraft gives you the right to use mods that are released and available to download anywhere on the internet. I dont think that means they can steal your code necessarily but it does mean flowerchild, greg, CJ, and others cant put game crashing code into the mod that attacks the end user. I love how everyone is blaming the user for this when its clear to me several bad behaving mod authors have pushed Mojang to finally have to define this grey area. Let me make this really clear for people who are confused about this. Minecraft is a game made by someone other then the mod authors. They really cant say how the mod should be addressed or handled or anything really. Its still Minecraft. That's really all Mojang is saying. All mods are Minecraft and we all own Minecraft. Pretty simple to me.

 

[Lathanael]

Marc has tried his best to make this clear. First off mod authors would be unable to prove in court that they "lost" anything from a mod being used against their will since the EULA specifically says you cannot make money off of mods. Second owning minecraft gives you the right to use mods that are released and available to download anywhere on the internet. I dont think that means they can steal your code necessarily but it does mean flowerchild, greg, CJ, and others cant put game crashing code into the mod that attacks the end user. I love how everyone is blaming the user for this when its clear to me several bad behaving mod authors have pushed Mojang to finally have to define this grey area. Let me make this really clear for people who are confused about this. Minecraft is a game made by someone other then the mod authors. They really cant say how the mod should be addressed or handled or anything really. Its still Minecraft. That's really all Mojang is saying. All mods are Minecraft and we all own Minecraft. Pretty simple to me.

And pretty wrong. Have a read on US, EU or most of the others copyright laws, even the Mojang EULA can not overrule this! As this is coming from Marc it's even worse. All this bs about permissions and how they have to be handled makes me sick.

All this can only result in a loss for our communtiy and in the end for Minecraft itself.

 

[Jadedcat]

Thanks but NO this drama can stay on Reddit and the MCF. Our permissions system is based on respect for the modders as fellow humans not legality.

I suggest you discuss this somewhere where "legality" is a concern as opposed to "polite and respectful".

Further threads on this topic will be deleted as flamebait.